by Sue Harrison
She stepped closer to the trader, again raised the fur to his face. “Two bellies of oil, just to see it, I would think,” she said.
Again the women murmured their agreement, several of them calling out, “Two bellies, yes. Two bellies.” Others came and added their voices to Aqamdax’s.
The trader opened his mouth to speak but then looked at the women.
“There are many of us,” Aqamdax told him. “And we have all brought things to trade. I am sure if you treat our elders well, we will continue to welcome you to our village.”
“Two bellies?” the trader asked.
Aqamdax nodded.
“He says two, Aunt. And also the nose pin?”
“What is happening here?”
Aqamdax recognized Day Breaker’s voice.
The other women parted to allow him through to the trader, but Aqamdax stood her ground.
“This man is a good trader,” she told Day Breaker. “He has offered our aunt two bellies of oil and a nose pin just for the chance to see this otter pelt.”
Day Breaker looked at the trader, then at Aqamdax.
“That is true?” he asked.
“Yes,” the trader said. His voice was weak. He cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said again. “Two bellies. The nose pin is a gift.”
Day Breaker nodded, but he fastened his eyes on Aqamdax, raised one eyebrow at her, a look that pulled at her heart, a look he now usually saved for his wife. “I will send other people your way, trader,” he said, then picked up the pelt and two seal bellies of oil and escorted White Hair back to the village.
Chakliux and Tut sat together in the lee of the iqyax racks, watching and listening as the storyteller Aqamdax dealt with Cormorant, first helping one of the old women, then trading for two birchbark saels, two caribou skins, necklaces and a few dyed porcupine quills.
Several times Chakliux had to hold his laughter in his mouth as Tut translated the storyteller’s words. She was a woman who knew how to get her way.
When she was done trading, Qung, the other storyteller, came. Cormorant and Red Feather gave her good deals. A caribou hide and some dried fish for a small seal skin and coil of sinew. A necklace thrown in as a gift, which Red Feather himself fastened around her neck.
After the old woman left, Chakliux let his thoughts dwell on Aqamdax. Her storytelling was a gift. He wondered if she knew how good she was. Sok had boasted to Chakliux that if Yehl did not take her, he would keep her himself. Why not? He could probably get trade goods from those who came to listen to her. Trades for the words that came from a woman’s mouth. What could be easier than that?
The Walrus traders had set out their goods earlier than Sok thought they would. When he woke, it was to the sound of men and women dickering, voices rising and falling, making offers, rejecting and accepting. He had hurriedly put out his goods, the few things he owned himself, things he had not set away as bride price for Aqamdax—things that would not mean much to River People but perhaps would have some value to Sea Hunters.
The first to look through his trade goods were several young girls, each full of giggling and with nothing to trade, but soon one of their mothers walked over. She called to others, and finally the crowd around him was nearly as large as the one around the Walrus traders.
The old storyteller came and, with her, Aqamdax. Sok tried to keep his eyes from Aqamdax but found himself watching the graceful movements of her hands as she picked up a hare fur blanket. She bent down to whisper into the old woman’s ear, and they both studied the weave of the blanket.
She was a good woman to look at. No wonder the men came eagerly to her bed. He wondered if they gave her trade goods in exchange for their pleasure. In some villages, women got many things that way—furs and necklaces, oil and meat. According to the Walrus Hunters, the practice was not common among the First Men. The men did not share their women except with hunting partners or a brother who had no wife, and not even a husband could make his wife go to a man she did not want. But Aqamdax was no one’s wife. She had no brother, no father, no uncle to speak for her. And worse, she was barren.
So what would happen if Sok asked her to come with him and be wife to the Walrus shaman? What woman, even a storyteller, even one who readily shared her bed, could survive without being a wife? It would not be long before she was old. Then what? Who would want her? Besides, what would he lose by asking?
From the corners of his eyes, Sok watched her. She stroked the weasel furs and looked through a birchbark sael full of quills. She picked up a fishskin basket, then joined several women in derisive laughter. Sok ignored their ridicule.
He had used rocks to make a platform and set the trade goods on the rocks. Though the rocks were uneven, it was better than having things flat on the ground. Men and women were careful, but children, in the excitement of trading, often started to run and play. Cormorant had told him he had lost more than one fishskin basket to a child’s feet.
Aqamdax finally came to him. She offered a shell necklace for a handful of carved soapstone beads. It was a good trade for him. The Caribou People would give much for a shell bead necklace. “How many?” he asked her, speaking the words in Walrus.
She held up five fingers twice. “Take more,” he said. He smiled as she lifted her eyebrows in surprise. She picked up three more beads and he nodded at her, then accepted the necklace.
Tut pushed through the crowd, squeezed around the trade goods and back to where Sok stood. “Do you need help in knowing what they say?” she asked.
“Yes, yes,” Sok said, then looked back at Aqamdax.
She had already turned her back and was standing on tiptoe to look over people’s heads toward the other traders. He could not be rude, reach out and clasp her arm, so he spoke, leaning forward across his trade goods.
“Your stories,” he said, raising his voice over the babble of women. “They are very good.”
Tut also leaned forward, spoke the words in the First Men tongue.
Aqamdax turned and looked at Tut, then at Sok. Her smile made her beautiful, smoothed the creases between her brows, and pushed her eyes into shining crescent moons. He had thought Daes was beautiful. This woman was better. Yes, the Walrus shaman would be pleased, especially if no one told him she was barren.
“I did not leave a gift last night. Could I come by later, when the trading has ended, and bring something?”
As Tut spoke, Sok saw surprise in Aqamdax’s face. She opened her mouth, then hesitated.
“Is there something you or your husband would like, something you see here?” He extended one arm out over his trade goods.
“My husband?” she asked. “Ah,” she said, “he has always wanted a good fishskin basket.” She laughed and several women beside her also laughed.
As Tut translated, a wedge of anger forced its way into Sok’s chest, but he said, “I will save him one,” and took the largest basket, crouched on his heels and filled it with skins, furs and necklaces. Then standing, he said, “I will bring it to him tonight. You live in the storyteller’s ulax?”
“Yes,” Aqamdax answered, looking first at Tut, then at Sok. She said something else, and Tut translated, explaining that Aqamdax had no husband, but Sok looked out over her head at the hunters who waited. Cormorant had told him they would not come until the women left, that then Sok should bring out his weapons and chert. He pretended not to hear what Tut was saying, and instead rearranged the chert and the seal skin floats he had brought from the Walrus Hunter Village.
Aqamdax hugged the beads to her chest and backed out through the women, allowing others to take her place. She got more than she had hoped for, beautiful beads from the River trader, necklaces and birchbark containers from the Walrus men, and the River trader was going to bring a gift, though part of that gift was a fishskin basket—something she deserved, she told herself, for making a joke at the man’s expense. Most men would have lashed out with angry words or retreated into a seething silence.
She was alread
y walking back to the village when she remembered that Qung was still trading. Aqamdax should have waited for her, should be there to carry whatever the old woman got. The traders had been generous with the old ones since Aqamdax had stood up to the one they called Cormorant. She pursed her lips to hide her smile. It was good to do something that helped someone.
She quickened her steps toward the ulax. She would carry her own trade goods home, then return to help Qung. She cut up over the small sand hill that separated the village from the beach. Four women walked ahead of her—Basket Keeper and her older sister, an aunt and the woman called Mouth. Mouth was not a good one to have as enemy. Her words were as sharp as winter-dried beach grass.
Aqamdax slowed her pace so she would not have to walk with them. The wind had grown since early morning, pushing a line of thick gray clouds in from the horizon. It molded her birdskin sax around her legs, and, as she walked down the back of the sand hill, it also brought the women’s words to her ears.
Basket Keeper was whining, as she usually did, about too much to do. Aqamdax shook her head. Compared to most wives, she did little. She had given her husband only one child, and all the women in the village knew that her sister-wife did most of the sewing and cooking.
Basket Keeper’s sister laughed. “You are lazy,” she said. “You should live with my husband, then you would know what work is.”
“Or live through a year when the salmon are plentiful,” her aunt added. “There are so few this year, I have filled only two drying racks.”
Mouth snorted. “What do you expect? We have a curse. We are lucky to have any salmon at all.”
“There are good years and years not so good,” the aunt said.
“I do not argue with that,” said Mouth, “but no one, not even the oldest among us, remembers a year with so few fish. There is always a reason for such things.”
Basket Keeper hummed an agreement. “The Two-beach People have a strong shaman….” She waved a hand west toward their village. “Perhaps he can tell us why this has happened.”
“Hii! I do not need a shaman for something as simple as that,” Mouth said. “Only one thing has changed in this village since last summer. One woman who is honored and should not be. One woman …”
“I have been a good wife,” Basket Keeper said. “Ask my husband. All things I do to honor—”
Mouth’s snort cut off her words. “Little fool,” she said, bending to look into Basket Keeper’s face, “do you always think everything is about you? Who lives now with Qung? Who has been honored with knowledge not even our elders know?”
Mouth’s words cut like knives into the happiness of Aqamdax’s trading. The carved beads were suddenly sharp in her hands, the new necklaces rough against her skin.
“Ah,” Basket Keeper said.
“Ah,” said her sister.
Angry words pushed into Aqamdax’s mouth, slid over her tongue as thick as oil. Almost, she shouted out to the women; almost, she told them what she thought. But what good would anger do? Perhaps only prove Mouth’s accusation. What was more rude than to listen to others’ conversations? What was more rude than interrupting?
Instead, she quickened her steps, strode up to them and passed, calling out a greeting. She turned, walking backward, her arms full of trade goods, a smile on her face. “It is a beautiful day, is it not?” she said.
They blinked at her cheerfulness, and finally Basket Keeper stammered out, “The sun, the sun is good.”
“The wind carries rain,” said Mouth.
Aqamdax shrugged. “We have had rain before,” she answered. “Truly we are a village blessed by good fortune.” Then she turned toward Qung’s ulax and walked on, closing her ears to whatever they said as they walked behind her.
“I told you he is coming,” Aqamdax said, and set out more fish, another pile of sea urchins. “He is coming to see my husband. He would not listen to me when I told him I was not married.”
Qung watched, wondered at Aqamdax’s nervousness. Many men had come to this ulax. Aqamdax had never set out food before, or worried because she had no husband. Why worry now? He would eat, he would go to her bed, he would leave, and in the morning Qung would see what Aqamdax had earned by opening her legs to another man.
“Aunt,” Aqamdax said, “I … it … now I am storyteller …” She tipped her head back on her shoulders and let out a long sigh. Her hair hung in a glossy flow to her hips, and, for a moment, Qung envied the girl’s beauty. “I do not want him in my bed,” she finally said. “The stories are enough. I do not need the men now. The stories changed things for me. I cannot explain it, but …”
“What makes you think he wants to come into your bed?”
“Every man wants to come into my bed. You know that.”
“There are men who do not come to you. You said he is bringing a gift to your husband. He will not expect anything from you if he plans to see your husband.”
“You think none of the men have told him about me?”
“You think men talk about women? There are too many other things to fill their mouths. Fishing and hunting and weapons. I was married for many years. I never heard my husband speak about me or our children. Men are not like women. They do not have much interest in people.”
“Bedding a woman is different,” Aqamdax told her. “For a man, it is not about people.”
Qung lifted her hands. “Who can say? I have never understood men, and I do not think they understand women.” She pointed up at the roof hole with her chin. “He is here,” she said.
Aqamdax straightened her sax, arranged the necklaces she wore, and held her breath as the man climbed down into the ulax. She recognized the feet on the climbing log and exhaled with sudden impatience.
“So now your wife is pregnant, you come to me again?” she asked.
Day Breaker set his feet on the ulax floor and turned slowly to face her. “I have no interest in your sleeping place,” he said to her. As though realizing for the first time that Qung stood watching him, he nodded at the old woman, muttered a greeting, called her grandmother in honor of her age. “My wife heard one of the traders say he was coming to visit you.”
“Your wife hears many things,” Aqamdax answered.
Day Breaker’s face darkened, and Aqamdax enjoyed his anger. He had told her she would be his wife. She had believed him, though the chief’s wives laughed when she told them. Now she understood their laughter. How could Day Breaker marry a woman without a father, a woman without uncles or brothers or a grandfather?
“Is it the trader called Sok?”
“Yes,” Aqamdax told him. “The tall one.”
“I saw him try to cheat an old woman.”
“That was one of the Walrus traders,” Aqamdax said. “Sok did not cheat anyone.”
“He gave me a whole caribou skin and dried fish for a small seal skin and a coil of twisted sinew,” Qung said. “He did not cheat me.”
“I have come to tell you to be careful,” said Day Breaker. “My uncle told me no one should ever trust a trader.”
“Your uncle does not trust anyone because he is dishonest himself,” Qung said. “Aqamdax has learned many things in her life. She has had men make promises to her before this.” She stepped close to Day Breaker. “She knows how to be careful,” she said, and stared at him until he turned and started up the climbing log.
“Do not think you are the only one with wisdom,” Qung called after him, then she looked at Aqamdax and giggled like a girl.
They met on old Qung’s ulax roof, so it was difficult to pretend they did not see each other, but neither man spoke. A sudden thrust of anger burned in Sok’s chest—was this one of the men who visited Aqamdax’s bed? But then he chided himself. Why should he care? The woman did not belong to him.
The Sea Hunter man jumped from the ulax roof, and Sok watched as he walked to another, larger ulax. Sok tightened his grip on the salmonskin basket he carried, then paused at the roof hole. He did not know the First Men’s cus
toms about visiting. Did a man call out? Did he use a stick to rap the wood that framed the square roof hole? Tut had said she would meet him here. Should he wait for her?
Finally he called down from the roof hole, then climbed into the ulax. It was a small ulax, less than half the size of many in the village. Of course, most ulas housed several families. This one, as far as he had been able to learn, belonged to the old woman Qung, and only she and Aqamdax lived here. Tut had told him that it was unusual among the First Men for a woman to own a ulax. Most belonged to men.
It seemed the most difficult thing about being a trader, besides the traveling, was learning the customs of each village. It was easy to offend without realizing. Cormorant had told him to speak softly and seldom, especially when he was invited to some villager’s lodge.
The two women stood at the bottom of the climbing log, and Qung made some nonsense of words that Sok guessed was a greeting. He reached into the basket, pulled out two birdbone necklaces and handed one to each women, then turned and looked around as though he were searching for Aqamdax’s husband.
“I have brought these things to honor your husband,” he said in the River language. “He is not here?” When they did not answer, he spoke in Walrus, one word, “Husband?”
“No husband,” Qung said, also speaking in Walrus.
Someone called from the roof hole, and in relief Sok recognized Tut’s voice.
She came down the climbing log, spoke for a moment to Qung, then said to Sok, “They understand that I am here to translate. What do you want to tell them?”
“Tell them I now know Aqamdax has no husband. Tell them I want them to have these things themselves.”
Tut explained in long words, then Qung smiled and took the basket from Sok and set it on the floor. She squatted beside it and pulled out his gifts, exclaiming over each thing as though she were a child.
Sok watched her, then felt a hand on his parka sleeve. “Would you like something to eat?” Aqamdax asked, pantomiming a bowl cupped in one hand, her other hand scooping toward her mouth with two fingers.